Systems and methods for prioritizing wireless communication of aircraft

ABSTRACT

A method for wireless communication of aircraft. The method includes, inter alia, in any feasible order, (1) in accordance with detecting a touchdown of the aircraft, assigning a first priority for transmitting information and a second priority for receiving media content; (2) in accordance with detecting an arrival of the aircraft at the gate, assigning a third priority for receiving media content; (3) in accordance with detecting a departure of the aircraft, assigning the first priority for transmitting information and the second priority for receiving media content; and (4) in accordance with detecting a departure ready of the aircraft, assigning a fourth priority for receiving essential media content and the second priority for receiving other media content. The first priority is greater than the second priority; and the fourth priority is greater than the second priority.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of and claims priority under 35U.S.C. §120 from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/210,160 by Bugafiled Sep. 12, 2008, now abandoned which claims priority under 35 U.S.C.§119(e) from U.S. patent application No. 60/971,823 by Buga filed Sep.12, 2007, each of the aforementioned applications is herein incorporatedby reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to wireless delivery ofmulti-media content. More particularly but not exclusively, the presentinvention relates to systems and methods for delivering wireless contentto aircraft on the ground or in the vicinity of an airport or otherground facility.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Modem aircraft, such as those used by commercial airlines, use In FlightEntertainment (IFE) management systems to manage the distribution ofdata and multimedia content to various aircraft systems, and monitorconsumption of digital video and other content. In addition, IFE systemsmanage distribution of these assets within the aircraft and transfer ofdata and content to and from the IFE. This is currently done with adevice known as a Portable Data Loader (PDL), which is a notebookcomputer manually carrier onboard an aircraft and synchronized,typically with a wired connection, with the IFE system.

Unfortunately, these PDL systems have a number of drawbacks, includingsignificant costs, lack of real time transmission and updatecapabilities, lack of distribution flexibility, lack of remotecommunication with aircraft tracking systems, as well as otherdisadvantages. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for improvedsystems for distributing multimedia content to aircraft.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related generally to data and multi-mediacontent provisioning for aircraft using wireless networks.

In one aspect, the present invention is directed to systems forintelligently providing media content to aircraft using wirelessconnections.

In another aspect, the present invention is directed to methods forintelligently providing media content to aircraft via wirelessconnections.

Additional aspects of the present invention are further described andillustrated herein with respect to the following detailed descriptionand appended drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

For a better understanding of the nature of the features of theinvention, reference should be made to the following detaileddescription taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, inwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of a GateSync (GS) systemimplementation, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a GS hierarchical and distributedarchitecture, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates an example of node connectivity and topology of aregional community, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 4 illustrates one embodiment of a Regional Controller (RC)implementation;

FIG. 5 illustrates one embodiment of a Local Controller (LC)implementation;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of GS wireless networking and connectivityto an aircraft, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 7 illustrates one embodiment of a GS operational & peering scheme,in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 8 illustrates one embodiment of a screen shot view showing a listof aircraft, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 9 illustrates one embodiment of a screen shot view showing aircraftdetails, in accordance with aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 10 illustrates a screen show view showing content assigned to theaircraft(s);

FIG. 11 illustrates one embodiment of a media and informationdistribution algorithm, in accordance with aspects of the presentinvention;

FIG. 12 illustrates one embodiment of a wireless network configurationand radio resource allocation algorithm, in accordance with aspects ofthe present invention;

FIG. 13 illustrates an example of roles and associated priorities inaccordance with one embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14 a illustrates a screen shot of an embodiment of advertisementprovisioning in accordance with aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 14 b illustrates a screen shot of an embodiment of flight dataupload provisioning in accordance with aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 14 c illustrates a screen shot of an embodiment of current contentupload provisioning in accordance with aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 14 d illustrates a screen shot of an embodiment of flight datadownload provisioning in accordance with aspect of the presentinvention; and

FIGS. 14 e and 14 f illustrate screen shots of an embodiment of packageprovisioning in accordance with aspect of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

This application is related to U.S. Utility patent application Ser. No.11/754,066, entitled SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR WIRELESS RESOURCEMANAGEMENT, U.S. Utility patent application Ser. No. 11/754,083,entitled SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR WIRELESS RESOURCEMANAGEMENT WITHMULTI-PROTOCOL MANAGEMENT, and to U.S. Utility patent application Ser.No. 11/754,093, entitled SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR WIRELESS RESOURCEMANAGEMENT WITH QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) MANAGEMENT. The content of eachof these applications is hereby incorporated by reference herein for allpurposes. These applications may be denoted herein collectively as the“related applications” for purposes of brevity.

With the emergence of new broadband wireless technologies such as WiMAX(IEEE 802.16), mesh networks, and other emerging networkingtechnologies, there is an opportunity to establish wireless networkingas a potentially new paradigm of media distribution. Aircraft, such ascommercial airliners and their onboard devices, can be connected bywireless broadband networks to airline and service provider operationsfor performing various IT related business functions, including data,media and information exchanges, deliveries, and distributions. All ofthis can be accomplished by using one or more dedicated, on or offairport base stations communicating directly with onboard aircraft radiotransceivers.

In accordance with the present invention, embodiments of a media/contentdistribution system, also denoted herein as a GateSync (GS) system, aredescribed. A GS system is configured to enable intelligent data andmulti-media information distribution and exchange to and/or fromaircraft, either while on the ground or in the vicinity of the ground,using wireless networks. For example, aircraft owned by commercialairlines such as United Airlines or American Airlines may be wirelesslyconnected to a GS system while on the ground at a gate or terminal, in aparking area, or while taxiing to or from runways, terminals or otherairport locations, with data and/or media uploaded or downloaded fromthe aircraft.

In a typical embodiment, a GS system may include content/mediamanagement servers, media distribution routers, wireless base stationsand/or repeaters (transmitter(s) and receiver(s)), multiple antennasystems, mobile and stationary wireless nodes with single or multipletransmitters, as well as receivers and antennas. Management and controlsoftware agents, which are application programs/modules providing deviceand/or system management functionality, may be present on some or all GScomponents for enabling management and configuring and controllingcommunication between various connected GS components. The relatedapplications describe embodiments of the use of such agents in awireless network such as the wireless networks described herein.

The GS components may be configured generally into Regional Controllers(RCs) configured to communication with multiple Local Controllers (LCs),which are typically installed onboard aircraft and configured to be inwireless communication with a Base Station (BS) integral with or coupledto the RC. These various system components may further becommunicatively coupled to a Network Operations Center (NOC) thatincludes interfaces, such as GUIs or other user interfaces, that areconfigured to allow operators to manage and control system wideoperation to the various GS components, including the RCs and LCs, aswell as the content to be loaded and retrieved from the aircraft. Inaddition, a GS system may include or be coupled with one or GlobalControllers (GCs) that may also be coupled to the RCs to providecontent. A typical GC will be assigned to a particular airline to allowthe airline to provisional appropriate content to its respectiveaircraft at various RCs.

In addition to the various GS embodiments further described below withrespect to the drawings, in some embodiments, the following componentsand functional capabilities may also be included in GS systemimplementations.

Fountain Codes-Fountain codes may be used to ensure delivery of contentin a noise and/or error prone environment. Fountain codes have beenshown to be useful for multicast problems such as may arise in someembodiments of the present invention. Use of such fountain codes aredescribed in, for example, M. Luby, “LT Codes,” Proc. Of IEEE Symposiumon the Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), 2002, pp. 271-280, and inU.S. Utility Pat. No. 6,307,487, both of which are incorporated byreference herein in their entirety.

Remote login for maintenance functionality—This capability may beprovided to operation staff at the Network Operations Center (NOC) or toaircraft maintenance staff or airlines staff tasked with managingcontent to gain insight into the status of on aircraft devices, such asthe local controllers (LCs), or status of other GC components. Theoperator is provided with an interface in the NOC to check that contentis indeed properly transferred (validating reporting) to the variousaircraft, debug systems that are reported to be malfunctioning, restartdevices or interfaces remotely, and/or collect information on systemusage such as memory or CPU cycles that may be causing performancedegradation or unreliability. In some applications, the ability to dothis without physically boarding an aircraft is important as it permitstechnical and system expertise to be applied to potential failureswithout using critical aircraft down time and/or without going throughthe process of gaining permission to access sensitive airport locationsor sensitive aircraft spaces.

Interface to multiple avionics systems—in some embodiments, a GS systemmay be configured to act as a “mailbox,” for transferring files and/ordata streams from onboard aircraft systems to offsite systems fordistribution or analysis and from offsite systems to onboard systems foruse. In addition to onboard entertainment systems (such as IFE systemsand the like), there are many other data producing and consuming systemsonboard a typical aircraft. Examples of these include ACARS (AircraftCommunication Addressing and Reporting System) and flight deck systems.One application of the present invention is the delivery and reportingof electronic flight bag data to the flight deck to update charts fornavigation. Another ACARS application example is downloading log filesof performance of avionics systems and scheduling of maintenance andlogistics of spare parts based on time (such as hours) since the lastservice/maintenance and/or repair, as well as aircraft performancemeasurements.

These various aircraft onboard systems each have specific interfacedescriptions, with potentially proprietary interfaces and/or protocols.In some cases, an Ethernet connection may be physically adequate toaccess the systems, however, security requirements may be required ornecessary in order to access data. For example, in the case of flightdeck systems, a local controller (LC) as described herein may need toshut down all other communication interfaces while a dedicatedconnection is opened to transfer EFB content, then the interface isdisconnected and other interfaces are reinitialized to communicate withother on or off aircraft systems. In typical embodiments, digitalcertificates may be used based on the specific requirements of eachinterface to improve performance.

Live feeds besides remote login-Live feeds may be enabled in GSimplementations in certain embodiments. While the primary function of atypical GS system is to deliver data and media content efficiently, theinfrastructure may also be used for providing real time services such asaudio, video or VoIP between the aircraft (i.e., crew, cabin,passengers) and/or to off aircraft personnel or others. For example,aircraft crews may desire to call the terminal or airline controller toprovide or receive instructions for cleaning crews or others duringcabin preparation. Security personnel may monitor passenger or crewbehavior over live video feeds. A wide variety of additional live feedapplications that can be facilitated by a GS system in accordance withthe present invention are also envisioned.

In some embodiments, multiple communication layers may be coordinated toimplement optimization of networking algorithms in accordance withconditions such as channel characteristics and/or other specific profileinformation. This is described in further detail elsewhere herein,however, in general, coordination of OSI layer 1 (PHY), 2 (MAC) and 3(IP), as well as, in some cases, higher layers such as layer 7 forcontent management, may be performed dynamically to optimize networkperformance against a specific usage profile. In one example, thisinvolves maximizing network throughput (in Bytes, etc.). Other examplesinclude guaranteeing priority deadlines before aircraft takeoff,providing the best connectivity to the weakest link, optimization ofbroadcast session, providing higher priority to premier customers, andthe like.

Ability to shift profiles for system optimization—In someimplementations, configuration coordination and tuning of multiplelayers to optimize against a profile may be done. In this caseoptimization is dynamically implemented and changes based on triggers,such as presence of premier customer aircraft, incomplete transmissionof critical data to aircraft due to depart, specified priorities fromairlines as to content distribution timing, as well as others. This maybe done by providing closed loop dynamic invocation of optimizationprofiles from a library of canned or predefined parameter sets.

Ability to coordinate reporting cross regional sites—In a typicalembodiment a system in accordance with the present invention will beconfigured in hierarchical fashion, with two or more RCs coordinated bya GC. With this configuration, the GC manages media transmission anddetermine at which RC particular media content will be provided toparticular aircraft. If an aircraft is traveling between two or moreregions, this coordination may be done based on aircraft downtimes atparticular airports, or based on other criteria. A central NOC may alsobe included which will provide a window into reporting from other systemcomponents, both for current status of devices, wireless links andcontent transfer, as well as for historical tracking of both of these,as well as other system collected information. In addition, securityinformation may be stored for use in situations where the aircraft arenot connected via broadband or other connectivity to an RC. The NOC willcontain information as to upload and download requirements as well aslast reported transactions, health of devices, and identities of LCs.Thus, for example, where GSM is the only means of communication it canbe used to provide information guiding transactions for unconnectedmodes of exchange as are further described below.

“Mail drop scenario with unconnected BS and GS”—In cases where it is notdesirable to establish an RC with broadband connectivity, a “mail drop”RC can be established. This RC implementation differs from the standardRC implementation in that it does not have its own broadband connectionto pull down fresh content from the MC. Instead it uploads fresh contentfrom aircraft that land at the associated airport to create a contentcache, and then transfers that con-tent to other aircraft that don'thave that particular content (for example, a single movie that is partof a monthly entertainment update). In this embodiment the RC functionssimilar to a standard RC, however, it uploads content as well as datafrom other aircraft, rather than from a central content distributionsite.

No BS peer to peer—In some implementations, two aircraft having LCs willbe present at the same airport, where the airport does not have an RC.Nevertheless, it may be desirable to exchange content between theaircraft so that any appropriate missing content stored on one aircraftcan be exchanged with the other, and vice versa. In order to do this,the respective LCs may be configured to establish communications witheach other and communicate to exchange the information. To facilitatethis approach, LCs may get location information from GSM connectivity(or via other mechanisms, such as on board GPS systems or other aircraftpositioning systems as a backup), and then determine which frequenciesthey may be permitted to use for radio communication. They may then tryto establish communication with other aircraft and associated LCs basedon this information. If the LC receives a response to its signals itthen establishes a relationship with the other LC (for example, thefirst one to transmit may act as a “superpeer” and controls thetransaction in a fashion similar to an RC) and uses metadata drawn fromthe GSM (or other connectivity) to establish security bonafides andcontent deltas across the two LCs. The content is then transmitted upand down link (absent the sophisticated optimization features) to updatethe respective content inventory of the LC and the superPeer (forexample with the LC further configured to reboot in RC mode).

Data and information distribution algorithms—Content may be assigned atype, priority, aircraft association (such as based on type of aircraft,time of arrival/departure, flight number, etc.) to facilitate contentdistribution and loading. This may be mapped to the airline/aircraft,arrival and/or departure times, etc. The GS system may be furtherconfigured to dynamically adapt to changes in the underlying information(such as changes in aircraft, arrival and departure times, airports,local wireless conditions, etc.) to manipulate and modify how contentprovisioning and network configuration is done.

Examples of functionality that may be employed in various embodiments ofa GS system in accordance with the present invention include:centralized data and content distribution and management, unicast (i.e.one source, several sinks (aircraft)) transmission, multicast orbroadcast trans-mission, chunking/parallelization & multicast(Bit-Torrent like), fountain codes used for multicast (for example,modified by time to departure priority), scheduling based on dynamicallymonitored network map, distributed and multi-hop communication links,mailbox host modes, peer-to-peer connectivity (such as between LCs),dynamically configured mesh networks (such as between multiple LCs),relay communication links (between LCs and other LCs and/or LCs andBCs), determination of link performance characteristics (such as linkperformance margins, SNIRs, etc.), dynamic adjustment of modulation anddata throughput rates (configuration/adaptation of PHY layer), advancedantenna system (such as space division access), dynamic time schedulingand dynamic content delivery selection, time bounded constraints, suchas dynamic network and/or content distribution configuration based onaircraft landing and departure times, time bounded priorities andexceptions, node availability times (such as appearing and disappearingnodes (aircraft/LCs) within reach of a particular BS or RC), dynamicadjustment of communication infrastructure and protocols, use ofTCP/UPD/IP, protocol overhead and performance management, dynamicconfiguration and adjustment of MAC proto-cols, as well as advancedantenna systems ((for example, beam forming, Multiple Input/MultipleOutput (MIMO), 802.11, etc.).

To realize the above capabilities as well as others, typical GSimplementations include the following elements: content/media managementservers, media distribution routers, dedicated on or off-airportwireless base stations and/or repeaters (transmitter(s) andreceiver(s)), advanced antenna systems, mobile and stationary wirelessnodes with single or multiple transmitters, receivers and antennas.Management and control software agents, such as are described in therelated applications, may be present on some or all GS components forthe purpose of enabling management and controlling communication betweenthe various GS components.

Attention is now directed to FIG. 1, which illustrates an embodiment ofa typical GateSync (GS) system 100 (also denoted herein as “GS 100” forbrevity). GS 100 includes communication and networking componentsconfigured to communicate with one or more aircraft 112 located on ornear an airport facility 110. For example, the airport 110 may include aterminal building or buildings 114 with one or more gates B5-B11 whereaircraft 112 may be parked, as shown in FIG. 1. Other airportconfigurations or other facility configurations are also contemplated.The aircraft 112 may also be transiting to or from the gates and/orother airport facilities or may also be located on runways or aircraftparking areas. Alternately, in some embodiments, the aircraft 112 may betaking off or landing at the airport while communicating with GS 100.Each aircraft 112 typically has an onboard with a local controller (LC)145 configured to communicate with other LC 145 s and/or with a RegionalController (RC) 220 and Base Station (BS) 130 via a sector controller140 through antenna 120 and/or repeater 125.

An LC 145 typically comprises hardware and software components installedon the aircraft 112. An LC 145 may include one or more processors,radios, antennas, computer hardware, software and/or interfaces forcommunicating with other aircraft devices, as well as the BS 130 and/orother aircraft 112. The radio components of the LC 145 may be sharedwith other onboard aircraft systems or other onboard aircraft radios.The LC 145 is typically coupled with the aircraft's IFE system toprovide media content to the IFE.

In a typical situation, the aircraft 112 are parked for limited timeintervals at the gates where they are within a reach of one or more basestations 130 that are configured for media delivery to the nodes (i.e.,the aircraft 112 LC 145) via one or more sector controllers 140 throughone or more antennas 120. In addition, one or more repeaters 125 may beused to provide additional coverage to the aircraft 112 by extendingcoverage range. FIG. 1 illustrates example link speeds between variouscommunication components, such as 20 Mbps between repeater 125 andantenna 120, however, these link speeds are shown for purposes ofillustration, not limitation. Accordingly, other link speeds andconnectivity, either fixed or dynamically determined, may also besupported by various embodiments.

Antennas 120 may be located on the airport facility boundary in someembodiments; however, in some embodiments it may be desirable to locateone or more of the antennas 120 offsite, such as at a location near tothe airport but not on the airport facility. This is illustrated in FIG.1, where antenna 120 and repeater 125 are located off of the airportboundary. This implementation may be useful for business or regulatoryreasons, such as to minimize on-site costs or other regulatory burdens,or for other reasons. Antennas 120 are connected to one or more sectorcontrollers 140, with the sector controllers configured to communicateto various regions of the airport or to various aircraft within aregion. For example, an antenna 120 may be a directional antenna withcoverage to aircraft in a 60% (or other angular) direction, with acorresponding sector controller matched to the particular antenna andcoupled to the BS 130.

In addition an RC 220 may include servers 158, 160, 162 and 170configured to receive, store, prepare and/or deliver media content tothe aircraft 112. The media content may be provisioned as furtherdescribed below and stored on a content server 170 or 152 to then beprovided to one or more aircraft 112. The system may be configured tooptimize the transport of these “media packages” to each aircraft andcorresponding flight through the base station 130.

In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1, the RC 220 comprises one ormore media/content servers 152, one or more communication hubs 156, oneor more Device Management (DM) servers 158, Resource Management (RM)servers 162, as well as one or more Provisioning/AirSync Servers (PS)160. It is noted that, in some embodiments, the functionality associatedwith these various servers may be combined in one more physical serversor other computer systems so as to reduce the number of physicalcomponents in a system. Likewise, in some embodiments the functionalityassociated with these various components may be distributed in two ormore physical computer systems to provide redundancy and/or distributedprocessing capability. The processing functionality provided by thesecomponents is further described below.

Provisioning Servers (PS) 160 are systems including hardware, softwareand/or software/hardware combinations in the form of modules configuredto provide an interface and management functionality to GS 100 SystemAdministrators, also denoted herein as “Operators.” The Operators may bepersons associated with particular airlines or groups of airlines whoare responsible for content selection and provisioning, or may beoverall system operators or administrators with similar duties. Thefunctionality associated with PS 160 may be provided directly through PS160 to the operators, such as no a display screen or other userinter-face, and/or may be provided through a separate Control/Admincomputer system such as GC server 153, Media Center (MC) server 151,and/or NOC server 154 as shown in FIG. 1. These capabilities allows forremote access to provisioning functionality through a WAN or VPN inconjunction with a Communications Hub (Com Hub) 156. PS 160 typicallystores information regarding network operation policy, provisionedservices and security needs and requirements, as well as otherinformation related to content provisioning and delivery. In a typicalembodiment, PS 160, either alone or in conjunction with Control/AdminComputer 153, provides an operator front end interface for access to anduse of the system to facilitate media content provisioning. It may beconfigured to serve WebServices calls (by, for example, SOAP protocol)from an associated Graphical User Interface (GUI), or from anothersystem (such as Computer 153, or another networked computer system suchas asset management system (not shown), network management system (notshown), or other system.

Device Management (DM) Servers 158 are systems including hardware,software and/or software/hardware combinations in the form of modulesconfigured to provide configure, control and enforce configuration datato managed network nodes, such as the Base Station 130, SectorControllers 140, Local Controllers 145 and/or Repeaters 125. Forexample, in a typical embodiment, a DM module running on DM Server 158is responsible for configuring and implementing secure and reliablecommunication protocols to the various nodes, as well as interfacing tonetwork layers in supported nodes/devices.

Resource Management/AirSync (RM) Servers 162 are systems includinghardware, software and/or software/hardware combinations in the form ofmodules configured to provide and manage overall system operation andmake decisions regarding network behavior. This may include managingadmitted services and associated quality levels, as well as network linkquality analysis. Information gathered via DM modules from the networkis provided to and processed and management by one or more RM modules,and then, based on the results of this data and network requirements,provisioning parameters and settings may be modified to adapt or adjustto current network performance and state.

Additional details regarding various embodiments of PS, DM and RMservers and associated processing is provided elsewhere herein as wellas in the related applications. Components DM 158, PS 160, RM 162, aswell as other components such as MC Server 151, NOC Server 154, and GCServer 153 may be interconnected as shown in FIG. 1, with connectivityto the base station 130 via Ethernet or other wired or wirelessnetworking configurations. Other configurations of these components,such as co-location in a common facility or distributed location of thevarious components is also contemplates. MC 151 may be housed in orconnected to a Media Center facility configured to allow development,editing, encryption and/or other processing to facilitate dataprovisioning to the aircraft.

The GS 100 system may further include a management console (not shown),where the management console comprises one or more hardware and/orsoftware modules, including elements such as a graphical user interface(GUI), to allow GS 100 system administrators to configure the GS 100system and/or individual components (such as groups, aircraft, rules,roles, priorities, content, and the like. This functionality may beincorporated in NOC Server 154, GC Server 153, and/or in other computersystems or servers in GS 100.

Example screen shots of embodiments of management console displayscreens and associated functionality are further illustrated in FIG. 8,as well as FIGS. 9 and 10. As noted above, in some embodiments, themanagement console may reside in whole or in part on computer 153,however, in some embodiments the functionality associated with themanagement console may be distributed over other system components, suchas other server components as shown in FIG. 1 or on other networkedcomputer systems (not shown).

MC 151, GC 153 and NOC Server 154 may be linked via the Internet or viaother types of wired or wireless connectivity to multiple RC 220 s andbase stations 130.

Typical aircraft 112 include an inflight entertainment (IFE) system. TheGS 100 is configured to manage a database of inflight entertainment(IFE) content (also denoted herein as an IFE database) coupled with anassociated schedule of aircraft types and location timetables. The IFEcontent may include data, text, digital audio or video content,multimedia content, electronic games or other interactive content, orother types of content for inflight use or entertainment, with the IFEdatabase including information about the corresponding IFE contentassociated with particular aircraft or flight. The IFE database may alsodefine a media-update schedule for all subscriber aircraft 112. Aseparate transport layer may be configured to be responsible for movinglarge digital media files to local storage at each airport site forstorage and upload to particular aircraft 112.

The GS 100 may also be configured to manage the preparation (licensing,editing, packaging, & encoding) of airline data, audio, video, print,multimedia and gaming content. Media packages prepared as dictated bythe system are transported around the globe to regional content servers170 in RC 220 s associated with particular airports or regions, forsecure delivery to each individual aircraft 112 via a correspondinglocal controller (i.e., LC 145). All media packages are typicallyidentified in a manner whereby they can only be downloaded and decryptedbased upon unique aircraft LC 145 identification.

Attention is now directed to FIG. 2 which illustrates additional detailsof a GS 100 system architecture. The GS 100 may be built usinghierarchical and distributed architecture that consists of multipleGlobal Controllers (GC) 210, Regional Controllers (RC) 220 and LocalController(s) (LC) 145, as illustrated in FIG. 2. In addition, one ormore Network Operations Centers (NOC) 260 may be coupled to the GS 100system, as well as one or more Media Centers 250, which include one ormore MC servers 150.

The NOC 260 includes one or more centrally located servers forconsolidated support of the entire system. This is typically forprimarily technical purposes, but may also be used to provide visibilityand management access to content transfer functions. Server 153 as shownin FIG. 1 may be located in the NOC 260 to provide this functionality.

There will typically be multiple sources of content for provisioning.For example, there may be one set of content for each airline customer,and potentially one or more for content generators in the MediaCenter(s) (MC) 260 who prepare encrypted and/or edited content for eachairline. The MC 260 may also have portals for the airlines to manage thecontent. In addition, there will typically be multiple GlobalControllers (GCs) 210, which are typically associated with a particularairline or airport. In a typical embodiment, metadata associated withthe content will be forwarded to each RC 220 from the MC 150 s, GC 210 sor the NOC 260, and the RC 220 will fetch associated the content fromthe MC 150 or GC 210. The NOC 260 will check to make sure the relevantmetadata is present, with the RC 220 typically not caring where the dataor content comes from as long as it has the appropriate content andmetadata needed to describe deployment criteria.

As noted previously, in a typical embodiment, MC 250 constitutes aseparate facility, where personnel edit films or other content forairlines in conjunction with computer systems/servers, then encrypt thecontent and include a user interface for airlines to schedule deploymentof the films or other content to various flights. The data associatedwith the films or other content is denoted as metadata, with the film orother media denoted as content. This service will typically be done by athird party. A global controller, such as GC 210, may be an alternatesource of content and metadata. Typically the GC 210 will containairline uploaded content, such as daily news, passenger manifestinformation, or other content, along with metadata describing prioritiesand targeted aircraft for deployment. In addition, a GC 210 maysupplement or override metadata associated with content from the MC 150.The GC 210 will typically be associated with an airline, or in somecases an airport. The content and metadata from both the MC 150 and GC210 will typically be found on multiple RC 220 s for distribution tomultiple LC 145 s.

In a typical embodiment each RC 220 is located at or in the proximity ofan airport, with the RCs typically including one or more servers asshown in FIG. 1, one or more sector controllers 140, one or more basestations 130, as well as, optionally one or more repeaters 125. Asdescribed previously with respect to FIG. 1, LC 145 s are aircraftonboard systems providing aircraft system interfaces, communicationslinks, security, and store and forward capabilities to provideconnectivity with the RC 220 s through the BS 130 s.

The NOC 260 is typically run by a system operator, which could be anoperator such as the company Proximetry, Inc., assignee of the presentapplication, a customer or customers, a joint venture providing servicesto the airlines (or potentially to airports who resell the service toairlines), or another operator. The NOC 260 is connected to other systemelements, such as the RC 220 s, via Internet or other networkingconnectivity. The NOC 260 is configured to monitor the entire network,including the status of all fixed network devices (RCs), onboardaircraft devices (LCs), and the aircraft IFEs that the LCs connect with.Software to monitor network health and proper network optimization isassociated with alarms and tools for ad hoc debugging and remoteinvestigation of problem areas.

A typical GC 210 is configured to manage media distribution for theentire global enterprise (for example, global content delivery to aspecific airline operator such as United Airlines or American Airlines),where the global enterprise typically consists of multiple aircraft 112distributed over large geographical areas such as the entire globe, oron multiple continents, countries or states. A group of aircraft 112form regional communities for media exchanges. Each regional communityis then controlled by an RC 220 in coordination with the GC 210 and LCs145 onboard aircraft 112. A particular aircraft 112 may join anyregional community for participation. However, an aircraft 112 istypically an active participant of only one regional community at atime, as physically present at a regional airport or other regionalfacility.

In a typical embodiment, the base station 130 may reside on airport oroff-airport within a certain maximum distance (e.g., for example, within3 mile radius depending on geography, etc.), with antennas mounted onnearby elevated infrastructures. Both licensed and license exemptwireless frequencies may be employed. The RC 220 manages mediadistribution of the regional community of aircraft. Aircraft 112 aretypically distributed over an airport's geographical area, andlocated/positioned at different distances to and from a BS 130. Such aconfiguration may be represented in a form of the graph, which consistsof nodes interconnected by links, as illustrated in FIG. 3. Anode (i.e.,LC 145) can be connected to a central point (i.e., BS 130) directly orvia one or more multi-hop nodes, such as through a repeater 125 oranother LC 145. In addition, aircraft 112 can be connected to otheraircraft 112 through one or more corresponding LC 145 s to formpeer-to-peer and mesh configurations. Examples of these variousconfigurations are illustrated in FIG. 3. Other configurations (notshown) may also be done, such as LC 145 s connecting through a repeater125, multiple LC 145 s communicating in a multi-hop or meshconfiguration, or other configurations such as are known or developed inthe art.

One potential advantage of a system implemented in this fashion is thealignment of optimization strategies on multiple layers of the network.Various optimization goals may require coordinated policy changes onPHY, MAC and IP layers of the delivery system, as well as applicationlinked strategies regarding which media to transfer at which time withunicast or multicast protocols. THE RC 220 may be configured todynamically employ multiple routing and media delivery strategies basedupon one or more of the following criteria and objectives: Lowest cost;Highest data throughput available; Shortest time available; Highestpriority; Maximum number of aircraft to serve; Minimal latency tostreaming live applications; or other criteria.

An LC 145 is typically configured to manage media distribution for asingle connected aircraft 112. This includes receiving and storing mediacontent and content needs of its particular aircraft 112, as well ascollecting, receiving, storing and/or transmitting other data orinformation, such as flight information, passenger manifests, aircraftcondition information and the like. Each LC 145 may also be configuredto communicate with its neighboring LC 145 s to be aware of itsneighbors, and store data or content from other aircraft as well asinformation about the quality of communication links between them. Inaddition, an LC 145 present on one aircraft 112 may communicate with anLC 145 present on another aircraft 112 on a peer-to-peer basis. Suchcommunication may be controlled by an associated RC 220 if such acommunication link is established between the various nodes, or can beestablished and conducted without the presence of an RC 220 if no RC 220is present, or if there is no communication link to/from an RC 220. LC145 s can communicate with an RC 220 BS 130 directly, through a repeater125, and/or through another LS 145 in a mesh relay mode. LC 145 s mayalso communicate directly with other LC 145 s in a peer to peer mode(and/or multiple aircraft if operating in a “super-Peer” mode where oneLC 145 s is configured similar to an RC 220).

Exchanges performed in the absence of an RC 220 may occur in a number ofways. For example, in a simple form a “mailbox” server implementationmay be used, where the RC 220 does not have the high speed Internetconnectivity to pull down the content, but does have the wirelessinfrastructure to connect to the aircraft 112. In this implementation,an aircraft 112, upon landing, will have its LC 145 upload its latestcontent to an “unconnected RC 220,” where the content is cached foranother aircraft 112 needing the same content. In a similar fashion,another LC 145 associated with a different aircraft 112 will query the“unconnected RC 220” for any new or updated content it needs. In thisimplementation, the unconnected RC 220 functions as a mailbox to storeand transmit content based on particular aircraft needs and connectivityavailability.

In another implementation, where no RC 220 is available, the LC 145 maysearch for another LC 145 with which to exchange content. Mutualauthentication and secure communication is typically used between thetwo (or more) LC 145 s to securitize this peer-to-peer communicationsession. The GC 210 may pre-authorize such communications between LC 145s, based upon various parameters such as RC 220 knowledge of LC 245content needs, content availability, connection schedule, locationinformation, and/or other parameters. This knowledge may be acquired andupdated with the assistance of GC 210. LC 145 s may also provide adialog or negotiation between themselves regarding content needs andcontent availability prior to content exchange. The LC 145 s may alsoupdate a connected RC 220 on its communications with other LC 145 s toensure that both RC 220 and GC 210 have information regarding thecurrent state of media distribution.

In some embodiments, an RC 220 can learn about LC 145 s that are not inits communication range by requesting a neighbor report from connectedLC 145 s. This report may include a list of all LC 145 s that are in therange of the requested LC 145. Neighbor reports may also include otherinformation such LC 145 status, media content available and/or required,or other information. Neighbor LC 145 s may also provide their neighborreports to a connected LC 145 for transfer of these reports to an RC220. Based upon this available information RC 220 may instruct andauthorize LC 145 to conduct peer-to-peer, mesh or relay communications.

In the event that there is no RC 220 and no base station 230, the LC 145may use an alternative radio link configured to connect to carrier orprivate network frequencies (such as CDMA, GSM, or LTE) to registerconnectivity and provide information to or from the NOC, identify itslocation and permissible frequencies and protocols for use, and identifypeer to peer partners at the same airport. In addition this connectivitymay be used to draw appropriate content from the NOC 260 for thebandwidth available—for example EVDO (Evolution-Data Optimized orEvolution Data Only is a telecommunication standard defined by the thirdgeneration partnership project (3GPP2) as part of the CDMA2000 family ofstandards, and has been adopted by many mobile phone service providersaround the world to support high data rates to be deployed alongside awireless carrier's voice services) or GSM could deliver manifests, whileLTE (Long Term Evolution, which is a 4G standard defined also defined by3GPP2) could deliver content. Once peer-to-peer partners are identified,along with permitted radio permutations, the system will start up thedetermined radio interfaces and initiate peer-to-peer connections.

Peer-to-peer connectivity can be achieved using a configurable multipleradio LC 145, controlled by intelligent software, with updated data onlocation. For example, in one embodiment the LS 145 receives/downloadsinformation from GSM, avionics, GPS, IFE or other position determinationdevices and then uses that information to determineappropriate/allowable radio communication channels (i.e., frequenciesand protocols). The LS 145 may first listen for an RC 220 and if no RC220 is present, the LS 145 may then listen for another LS 145 operatingin a “beacon” or “superPeer” mode, which functions similar to an RC 220.For example, a previously arrived aircraft may operate in the most afterhaving determined that no RC 220 or other LS 145 is present. If thenewly arrived aircraft detects the superPeer, it may then establishcommunication and exchange any desired media content or data with theother aircraft. Conversely, if the newly arrived aircraft does notdetect another RC 220 or LS 145 operating in superPeer mode, it may thenre-initialize and operate in superPeer mode to detect later arrivingaircraft. Software modules contained in the LS 145 s may be configuredto implement this functionality, including determination of location,selection of appropriate radio frequencies/channels, communication andnetworking protocols, modes of operation (i.e. BS or subscriberstation), credentials needed to establish a session, as well as otherparameters.

In some embodiments, if the connection is deter-mined to be peer-to-peerthe system may reboot in special configurations—for example a WiMAX cpethat is part of the PC may be reconfigured to act as a picoBaseStation,or a combination of radios may act as a relay, utilizing multipleprotocols and frequencies. In addition in a peer to peer mode there willbe lightweight content transfer control software present to determinewhich files should be transferred to which device.

The above network topology options, combined with multiple modes ofcommunications, enable creating parallel media distribution and crossloading capabilities that acts as space divided multiple subnetworksreusing scare radio resources, such as frequency and bandwidth, whilemaximizing link margins, thus increasing the speed of data transfers.This parallelization can be seen as separating the media distributionalgorithm into a number of local algorithms operating concurrently atdifferent transmitter-receiver pairs.

In addition, in typical embodiments the RC 220, which includes basestation(s) 130, management servers 155, 160 and 162, and otherinfrastructure elements such as are shown in FIG. 1, manages itsregional operations and its wireless network around the airportlocation, and dynamically adjusts the service levels associated witheach content type depending on parameters such as the aircraft 112departure date/time and current throughput. The RC 220 may also beconfigured to manage the onboard aircraft LC 145 software/firmware,including updates and changes, and wireless network and link parametersto optimize data transfers under a range of settings. In addition, theRC 220 may also manage the transfer of content to the LC 145 s inaccordance with metadata associated with content packages according togrouping information derived from the MC/GC server(s). The RC 220 mayalso be configured to validate download events and allocate prioritiesdynamically according to defined profiles. As used herein, profiles arenetwork optimization configurations for example, most bytes transferred,best coverage to all devices, timing priorities, etc. Typically not allcontent is given the same value/priority, and not all aircraft aresimilarly characterized. Therefore, a matrix of priorities based onmedia content such as daily news vs. digital movie for flight departingin 3 minutes vs. 2 hours is developed. In addition, live debug sessionsand service flows such as VoIP and video may be done, such as when anaircraft lands and requires service, maintenance, testing, etc. Inaddition, these priorities may be modified based upon wireless networkand link performance to each aircraft 112 and to date/time for flightdeparture.

In some embodiments, another application supported by GS 100 is theability to create secure sessions with associated service flows to boththe LC 145 and IFE. This connectivity is directed at solutions for twoscenarios: the first is maintenance and troubleshooting of theequipment, and the second is supporting live feeds for on aircraftdevices and crew members. In the maintenance and troubleshooting modelive statistics relating to content transfer, connectivity, and devicehealth are sent back to the NOC for monitoring purposes. In the eventthat these statistics trigger further investigation secure networksessions are created for remote users to log in and run diagnostics,configuration scripts, and restart interfaces and devices. This willdepend on the device interface. Most devices will have SSH and telnetinterfaces, and some may have more advanced tools. With IFEs, a reverseSSH session may be initiated by the IFE from behind its firewall basedon the IFE polling its associated LC 145 for a flag on “start debugsession” and a parameter of the NOC IP requesting the session. For theLC 145, a simpler situation would be the NOC 260 directing initiation ofan SSH session with credentials.

In addition there is the provision to support the use case of crewmembers wishing to use the network link for applications rather thansimply content transfer, including latency sensitive application such asvoice and video. Aircraft maintenance, cabin preparation, and passengerloading are among the activities we have been requested to support withstreaming and other real-time applications. These streams may beidentified by protocol sniffing or IP:Port profiling, and QOS levels maybe applied to predefined services designed for these applications.

The integration of GC 210 and RC 220 functionality sets makes thecombination a unique and powerful tool for wireless delivery of criticalinformation and content in tight windows of data transfer opportunities(the so called “wheels down window”). This window of time may be verylimited for many commercial aircraft due to the desire to keep aircraftin the air to maximize revenue. For many commercial airlines, airplanesneed to be quickly unloaded, cleaned (if applicable), refueled andreprovisioned, and then reloaded for departure. In many cases this timewindow is very short, requiring that systems in accordance with thepresent invention be capable of quickly determining aircraft needs andproviding the associated content.

Another aspect of the present invention relates to an RC 220 managementsystem, which includes a wireless network management software utilitythat fully integrates provisioning (content assignments), devicemanagement (content distributions) and resource management (wirelessnetwork and links performance optimizations). Details of embodiments ofthis wireless network management system and software are described inU.S. Utility patent application Ser. No. 11/754,066, entitled SYSTEMSAND METHODS FOR WIRELESS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, U.S. Utility patentapplication Ser. No. 11/754,083, entitled SYSTEMS AND METHODS FORWIRELESS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT WITH MULTI-PROTOCOL MANAGEMENT, and to U.S.Utility patent application Ser. No. 11/754,093, entitled SYSTEMS ANDMETHODS FOR WIRELESS RESOURCE MANAGEMENT WITH QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS)MANAGEMENT. The content of each of these applications is herebyincorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes.

The provisioning systems and methods described in these related patentapplications allows users to create a set of service levels and rulesthat apply these to users, applications and data streams. Depending onthe business process requirements, service levels can be associated withairline company requirements, and each individual department's(entertainments, safety, maintenance, etc.), data types (video,telemetry, etc.), devices (aircraft IFE, aircraft Flight Deck, othernavigation, maintenance, avionics and mobile systems connected withaircraft or the maintenance and servicing of aircraft, commerce,operations, etc.), or applications (VoIP, e-commerce, etc.) residing ondevices or any combination thereof.

A Device Manager (DM) application is configured to provide the abilityto manage the images, i.e., software/firmware on particular devices inthe network, and configurations of supported devices. It also provides a“back door” by which the device may be remotely controlled at the NOC260 or controlled locally for purposes of maintenance and monitoring.Its role is the maintenance of image stability, including patches,updates and network rules, as well as the ability to dynamically changedevice parameters as dictated by a Resource Manager (RM) application.The DM also manages the content delivery to devices and a group ofdevices. The DM application is typically run on a server such as DMserver 158, shown in FIG. 1, to maintain configuration and deviceinventories on the server. In an exemplary embodiment it uses a AirSyncagent (i.e., a local device agent application/module) residing on thevarious devices to perform a proxy operation. A secure communicationchannel and protocol between the DM server 158 and AirSync agentsexecuting on the various devices, such as LC 145 s, is typicallyprovided.

A Resource Manager (RM) application is an engine that monitors networkconditions and invokes the service level rules established in theprovisioning module to dynamically configure managed wireless networkdevices in real-time. This control includes traffic shaping and wirelessnetwork and links parameters on wireless network devices such as basestations 130, LC 145 s and other devices, such as IFEs, using thenetwork. The Resource Manager constantly monitors the networkanticipating the need to change network configurations to ensure theservice levels mandated by the provisioning requirements are met, and RC220 optimization goals are met. An RM application may be configured in afashion similar to a DM as described above, and may reside on an RMserver, such as server 162 as shown in FIG. 1. RM processing modules mayreside on the RM server and may be downloaded to devices, such as LC 145s, using DM communication, for local execution on the particular device.

Using these applications in a GS 100 system provides an intelligent,rules-driven foundation which device management and resource managementmodules leverage to provide higher throughput and predictable servicelevels. With this foundation, the GS 100 system manipulates and managesusers, accounts, applications, application rules, and devices within acontext and priority based environment.

Attention is now directed to FIG. 4 which illustrates an exemplaryimplementation of an RC 220. The RC 220 wireless network infrastructuremay include one or more base stations 130, sector controllers 140, andsector antennas 120. The RC 220 may also include one or more servers asshown in FIG. 1, including content server 170, DM, RM, and provisioningservers 158, 162, 160, and or other servers, such as the AirSync server460 shown in FIG. 4, which may be the same as or coupled to server 150as shown in FIG. 1. Base station 130 and/or associated servers mayinclude an embedded software agent, denoted herein as an “AirSync agent”based on a specific implementation of such an agent offered byProximetry, Inc., which operates in conjunction with the AirSync server460 as shown in FIG. 4 and/or Provisioning Server 160 as shown in FIG.1.

In an typical application, when an aircraft 112 touches down and comesinto range of RC 220 wireless connectivity, the base station 130 detectsthe aircraft, such as by having the LC 145 activate an appropriate radiochannel and present its credentials to the BS 130, and then prompts theDM application to check that aircraft's content needs against metadataderived from the MC 150 or GC 210. As noted previously, there may bemore than one Media Center and/or Global Controller associated with thesystem- and typically it will not be just a single facility. Webservices associates MCs with the NOC 260 (such as by passing metadataincluding a pointer to content data) and the NOC 260 forwards thismetadata (via web services in an xml format) to the RC 220. The RC 220typically includes a content server which downloads the contentassociated with the metadata from the MC 150. Metadata is originallyassociated with content by the MC 250 or GC 210, either through ascripting process or UI when content is uploaded. The GC 210 may modifymetadata or generate content and metadata on its own-which is then sentto the NOC 260 and processed as described above.

The MC 250 is typically associated with a service provider for content,with the GC 210 typically controlled by an airline that designates whichcontent goes where and adds perishable content (e.g. local news updates)or local/unique content (e.g. passenger manifest).

Assigned streams of content are then directed to the aircraft 112'sonboard LC 145. Transferred content is typically stored on a hard drivein the LC 145, to be uploaded to the aircraft's IFE system later, suchas during taxiing or take-off. The AirSync server, (i.e. Server 160) isconfigured to manage service flows from the wireless network used totransfer content from the BS 130 in RC 220 to the LC 145 s. Streams aremanaged according to priorities assigned in metadata and triggers basedon network state and external events such as gate and equipment changes,departure times, and the like.

Attention is now directed to FIG. 5 which illustrates an exemplaryimplementation of a local controller (LC) 145. As noted previously, anLC 145 may include one or more antennas 510, typically window mountedpaddle antennas or other antennas configured for use on aircraft, witheach LC 145 including an embedded AirSync agent configured to interpretand execute local radio parameter settings dictated by an EWM/AirSyncserver 460 and/or 160 as shown in FIG. 4, through a base station 130.

A typical LC 145 includes one or more, typically several, radio unitswith interfaces that can be managed by embedded software runninglocally. These are systems configured with the ability to selectappropriate interface (protocol and frequency) and mode (for exampleWiMAX pBS vs. SS mode) on start up, and capable of adapting to frequencyrequirements and to better wireless channels to optimize around areas ofinterference and low received signals. The radio components and theentire LC are typically onboard aircraft equipment and managed andcontrolled by software including agents for the AirSync and GateSyncfunctionality. In addition, they will typically be connected to on boardsystems to provide aircraft related information and/or othercommunication links.

Additional modes of operation are possible for the LC 145 s. Forexample, by leveraging the fact that a typical onboard system includesdual radios with two or more antennas mounted on opposite sides of theaircraft, which allow for opportunistic use of mesh capabilities in thewireless network against two scenarios to increase throughput againstpoor line of sight or interference scenarios. In the first scenario,when an aircraft 112 is docked with poor angle of reception or in abuilding shadow, adjacent aircraft 112 can act as mesh “relay stations”to transmit live data streams to the target aircraft 112. In a secondexample, adjacent aircraft 112 can signal each other via LC 145 agentson board and transfer common content back and forth without requiringuse of valuable base station 230 bandwidth. This type of operationenables the ability to overcome NON LOS (i.e. Line of Sight)communication or non-reliable paths, by employing LOS mesh communicationpaths to maximize data rates due to lower path loss (higher link margin)for these shorter peer-to-peer links.

Aircraft typically have software-controlled radio devices capable ofadapting to frequency requirements and to better wireless channels tooptimize around areas of interference and low received signals. Thesemay be integral with our coupled with the LC 145 s and may be used inconjunction with dynamic adaptations and advanced antenna systems (AAS),individual SLAs (i.e. Airline Service Level Agreements) to guaranteetimely delivery of critical content to priority aircraft.

Software agents embedded on these LC devices may be used carry out localnetwork configuration changes as dictated by the management server atthe RC 220 location.

FIG. 6 shows an example of a GS 100 system providing wireless networkingand connectivity to an aircraft 112. Communications may be providedthrough antennas known or developed for aircraft use, such as surfacemount fin antennas, window mount antennas, or other types of antennassuitable for aircraft applications. Communications from a sectorcontroller 140 are provided to the onboard LC 145, which in someembodiments may be a worldwide wireless bridge capable of acting as atransceiver for a range of communication protocols such as 802.16,802.11, LTE, or others.

In a typical implementation, data content and multimedia informationwill be available to the GS 100 system for distribution to wirelessnodes (i.e. aircraft via LC 145 s). This content may include multiplemultimedia files based on various types and sizes. Each file may haveassigned source and destination addresses (Tx and Rx nodes) fordelivery, delivery priorities, delivery start and expiration time, filetype, information type, QOS requirements, and/or other characteristicsand delivery requirements. Based upon this information and the filecharacteristics, the GS 100 system will prepare these files for optimaldistribution over the wireless network, as illustrated on FIG. 6. Forexample, a GateSync Server (i.e. DM/GS 158) gets metadata from NOC 260,as forwarded from MC 150 and/or GC 210, and content from MC 250 and/orGC 210 is then transferred to the Content Server 170 for later upload tothe aircraft. The preparation may include, “chunking” and indexing largefiles into manageable fragments that can be reassembled by the receivingnodes, which are typically done by the Content Server.

The GS 100 typically has global knowledge of all content that isavailable and that must be distributed to each individualuser/device/node. This knowledge may be derived from metadata providedin conjunction with the content that the GS 100 system receives beforeit accepts content, such as from the MC 250 and/or GC 210. Likewise,Each RC 220 may have a local file server, such as content server 170,configured to store the received content and provide it fordistribution. The stored content may include (but is not limited to):

From airline Media Center/GC: Groups, airline name, aircraft type,origin airport, destination airport, flight number, departure time (onlyfor flight number group).

Devices: air planes/air plane tail FIN numbers.

LC devices: Radios

Content packages: Movies and video files for IFE (In FlightEntertainment) system, Multimedia advertisements for IFE system, News,Flight Manifest, Operational data, Video for security, Telemetry formedical emergency, e-commerce data

Service types: Broadcast, Multicast, Unicast, Rules, Arrival time,Departure time, Link performance, Number of connected aircraft, Downloadneeds, Download status, Download complete, Exceptions

The above information may be obtained, refreshed and synchronized withairline Media Center/GC 210.

FIG. 7 illustrates aspects of one embodiment including peer to peercommunication, where a first aircraft 112 receives content from a BS 130via an LC 145, with the BS 130 located either off-site of the airport oron-site (not shown), and then provides specific tailored content to asecond aircraft 112 in a peer-to-peer networking configuration.

FIGS. 8, 9 and 10 show screen shots that illustrate exemplaryembodiments of some of the above information fields.

FIG. 8 illustrates a screen shot of an Aircraft View 800. Aircraft View800 may be presented on a control/administration computer within the GS100 system, such as computer 153 as shown in FIG. 1, or via NOC260, MC250 or GC 210 computer systems. This computer may comprise a managementconsole as previously described with respect to FIG. 1, with a DM serverused to keep track of groupings. In a typical embodiment, an aircraft istreated as a device, identified by a unique number, with unique FlightInformation (FIN). A system administrator, such as a GS 100 systemoperator or an airline specific operator/user may use screen displayssuch as the display shown in FIG. 9 to define groupings based on airlineoperational plans.

Aircraft view 800 includes a group hierarchy 810, which may include anairline associated with the aircraft, the type of flight (i.e., regular,charter, etc.), the Origin airport, flight numbers, and/or otherinformation about the aircraft 112 and its relationship to an associatedairline and/or airports or other facilities. In addition, a uniqueidentification number or other designator 820 may be provided, alongwith additional details 830 regarding the aircraft 112 and media to beuploaded to the aircraft 112 and/or other data.

Upon selecting additional details 830 as shown in FIG. 8, another screenmay be presented, such as the one shown in FIG. 9, which illustrates anembodiment of an Aircraft Details View 900. This view may includevarious features, such as an aircraft sub-view 910, an aircraft rulessub-view 920, an aircraft packages sub-view 930, as well as other views(not shown). Aircraft sub-view 910 may include information related tothe aircraft and associated airlines, flight numbers, departure orarrival cities, schedule information, group information and/or otherinformation.

In an exemplary embodiment, a group is used as a container for both asingle role and one or more aircraft. It thus serves as the connectionmechanism for the modified service flow and the contextually definedstatus of the aircraft to dynamically assign and optimize a set ofnetwork resources and service rules to the aircraft.

In accordance with one embodiment, the following is a list of roles, andsimplified examples of what type of data might be important.

Roles

Landing—This is the role the AirSync Client, residing on the aircraft'sLC 145, will initially receive. The client will stay in this role untilthe GS 100 Server (i.e. Server 158) receives a notification from theAirline that the client has arrived at the gate. This role will havepriorities adjusted so that information that needs to be sentimmediately after touchdown will be send.

At Gate—This role will be assigned to the LC 145 (client) upon the GS100 server receiving a notification that a client has arrived at a gate.This information may come from the GC 210, in conjunction with therespective airline(s) reporting system. In one embodiment, theinformation may be provided in a webservice message to the GS 158server. The GS 158 server then instructs the AirSync (i.e., PS 160)server to change the role assigned to the target LC 145. This rolechange will then be changed to modify the priority for multimediainformation such as news, movies, music, etc. (i.e., increase priorityat the gate). Content type may include passenger manifest, news, movies,maintenance data, etc. the passenger manifest is a list of passengerswith seat assignments, and may also include other passenger relatedinformation. Service flow is a connection (e.g., VoIP call, TCPconnection, etc.) with assigned quality of service (QOS) parameters.

Departing—This role will be assigned to the LC 145 (client) upon the GSserver receiving a notification that the client will be taking off in aparticular time period (e.g., the next 10-20 minutes). Upon assignmentthe server will initiate transfer of passenger manifest information. Forexample, for an aircraft departing in X minutes, based on departure fromgate time provided by the GC 158, the GS 100 system will automaticallytrack time remaining to transfer content, and increase priority ofcritical untransferred content depending on content type and time todeparture. The mechanism for these changes may be a webservicesnotification to the AirSync server to change the role assigned to the LC145 to ensure completed transfer of essential content, for example,manifest and daily news would have priority over monthly update ofdigital movies as they are REQUIRED to take off.

Dept Ready—This role will be assigned upon the completion of thepassenger manifest transfer. Passenger manifest transfers may occurseveral times during a gated period, and as they will typically beassigned a high priority, they may interrupt other content transferactivities. Once this transfer is completed, other lower prioritytransfers may then occur. FIG. 13 illustrates a set of roles andassociated priority in accordance with one embodiment of the invention.

Aircraft rules sub-view 920 includes information related to rules forparticular types of media content as well as prioritization of thedelivery of the associated media content to the aircraft. For example,Application is a Media Type (i.e., video content, audio content), thathas an assigned rule, such as, for example, an available bandwidth suchas 1000-1500 Kbps, a priority (for example, high priority may be set at1), and group objects linking it to a role (interface).

Aircraft packages sub-view 930 includes information regarding theinventory of content to be transferred. Illustrative content inventoryis shown in FIG. 930, content type is passenger manifest, name is simplya tracking of passenger manifest for the designated flight, and serviceflow is data transfer (P2P) as opposed to broadcast or latency sensitivestreaming flows such as VoIP.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of an Aircraft Content Assignmentdisplay, showing packages of content 1010 to be assigned to a particularaircraft 112 upon arrival at an airport or other facility. This displaymay be provided through the provisioning implemented in the mediacontrol center 150. For example, it may represent a list of availablepackages (software/content for uploads). A system administrator willtypically assign packages to groups/aircraft in conjunction with themedia control center 150 as described with respect to FIG. 1. FIG. 14shows an embodiment of a content selection view 1400 illustratingavailable and assigned advertising items.

Content types will typically use one or more service flows, dependent onnetwork conditions and aircraft status. Table 1 below illustrates amapping representation of content to service flow status given a rangeof mapping options. Typically a combination of GS 100 system servers(such as, for example the GateSync server 158, Content Server 170, andAirSync Server 160) will select and send content leveraging differentservices depending on parameters such as aircraft priority, contentdownloaded, modulation to members of potential multicast groups, missingchunks in multicast content as well as total load on the wirelesssystem.

TABLE 1 Content and Associated Service Type Content Service TypesFeature Films Feature Film, Multicast, Multicast Priority, Feature FilmsPriority Advertisements Current Content Advertisement, AdvertisementPriority, Multicast, Current Content, Current Content Priority FlightData, Uploads Flight Data, Flight Data Priority Flight Data, DownloadsFlight Data, Flight Data Priority LiveLink (VoIP) Handheld VoIP

Communication between nodes can be constrained by certain policies,rules, priorities, time limits and performance requirements, and thesecan vary from node to node. These policies, rules, priorities, etc. aretypically assigned by role. These constrains are taken for considerationby algorithms optimizing system and specific link or node performance.The GS may use variety of algorithms designed to meet specificperformance or optimization goal or multiple goals for each or set ofnodes. These algorithms are launched as required to meet a specificoptimization goal. For example, major optimization goals and associatedconstraints include providing content in a specific time and insuringcommunication link available. For example, one constraint is todetermine the required capacity to upload content to an aircraft duringdowntime (i.e. time between arrival and departure) based on the requiredcontent to be uploaded and system capacity and configuration. In somecases there may be exception events that would require dynamicreconfiguration, such as when an aircraft arrives late and/or mustdepart early or in less than the expected downtime. In addition, contentdelivery criteria may change requiring uploading or more and/ordifferent content prior to departure. The GS 100 system is configured toprocess various conditions such as these and dynamically adjust contentdelivery in response.

For example, one significant constraint is time limits/deadlines forcommunication link availability, such as landing to departure time.Processing to address these constraints may be done by the RM runningapplication/module running on the RM server.

In typical embodiments, the computations take into account only devicesthat are connected to particular base station at a time. This istypically done by an RM module/application running on the RM Server,such as server 162 shown in FIG. 1, and adjustments are activated basedon occurrence of conditions requiring content delivery update. This istypically provided by a content provisioning server, such as server 160as shown in FIG. 1. In a typical embodiment, only rules that areassigned to the currently connected aircraft are taken into account,with activation occurring when specific conditions, such as aircraftdelays or arrival/departure changes, happen. Activation may be done inconjunction with a provisioning server, such as PS 160 as shown in FIG.1.

For example, in one embodiment, when an airplane 112 arrives andconnects to an RC 220, the RC 220 retrieves current roles definingservice flows, priorities and device characteristics for the particularLC 145 and utilizes roles for all connected airplanes definitions forall connected airplanes 112, including the newly detected one, toperform calculations and optimizations. In addition, time triggers thatcheck the time of departure for a particular airplane 112, and otherconditions or exceptions such as change of equipment (i.e., aircraft,failure of content file transfer based on an ECC check, or otherunexpected conditions that may invoke recalculation of rules for aparticular RC 220 or BS 130.

Wireless technologies such as IEEE 802.16 may be used to employ adaptivemodulation techniques and data transfer rates in accordance to availablelink performance margin (SNIR). Link margins are affected by thedistance between transmitter and receiver, transmit power, by signal tonoise ratios and interference, in addition to other factors affective RFsignal propagation. Line-of-sight (LOS) and No-Line-of-Sight (NLOS)signal propagation will also affect link and system performance, withLOS links typically delivering higher link margin/performance. Moreefficient modulation and coding techniques may be used for higher linkmargin, resulting in higher data transmission rate and data throughput.Table 2 below illustrates a mapping of signal strength, as may bedetermined by local components such as LC 145 s, sector controllers 140and/or base stations 125, mapped to corresponding modulation techniquesand associated data rates. For example, if the GS 100 system determinesthat the received signal strength on a particular wireless link betweenan LC 145 and BS 125 is −68 dBm or better, 64QAM-3/4 modulation may beselected and used to support a 54 Mbps data rate. Conditions such asthose shown in Table 2 may be continuously monitored, with theassociated modulation (or other parameters, such as signal power, etc.)updated to provide a particular desired performance.

TABLE 2 Modulation and Associated Data Rate as a Function of SignalStrength Received Signal Strength Modulation Max Data Rate −68 dBm64QAM-¾ 54 Mbps −69 dBm 64QAM-⅔ 48 Mbps −74 dBm 64QAM-¾ 36 Mbps −76 dBm64QAM-½ 24 Mbps

Consequently, in a typical implementation each link can be characterizedby a set of performance characteristics that may include parameters suchas SNIR (signal to noise/interference ratio), and QOS profile (datarate, delay, etc.). Typically, nodes closer to a BS 230 will exhibitbetter link performance, because more efficient coding/modulation schemecan be used for links with higher link margin (i.e., SNIR).

Network topologies and modes of communications such as those describedabove allow creating efficient media delivery networks with maximizeddata rates, due to selection of the best performing links, and by“converting” NLOS links to LOS, when utilizing peer-to-peer and meshconfigurations.

In accordance with some embodiments of the present invention,implementation of an RC 220 may employ OFDMA and antenna systems basedon the IEEE 802.16 standard, incorporated by reference herein. Ifsingle-hop communications are used, BS 230 associated with the RC 230 isconfigured to control TX power and time/frequency scheduling inOFDMA-based wireless networks with point-to-multi-point architectures(single-hop communication). BS 230 acquires and stores, through, forexample, radio channel feedback which is stored on the RM server 162and/or an associated database, channel knowledge of each node, such aschannel knowledge regarding each connection between LC 145 s and otherLC 145 s, repeaters 125 and/or base stations 125. Based upon thisinformation, BS 230 assigns time slots and sub-carriers (chunks) to eachsubscriber together with proper modulation/coding rates that result froma dynamically determined power allocation strategy. The objective of thealgorithm is to maximize either some aggregate utility of rates or, moregenerally, the sum of appropriate utility-per-cost measures subject togiven QoS constraints such as delay and rate constraints.

The consideration of utility-per-cost measures may be reasonable incases when the throughput performance should be balanced against thepower or energy consumption. As described above, provided mediatypically includes different file/traffic types, with different QoS andpriority requirements. Traffic may include real-time and non-real timetraffic with hard rate requirements as well as best effort traffic. TheMAC protocols dynamically adapt to varying channel and networkparameters. For example, MAC (Media Access Control) is an OSI layer 2protocol. The MAC protocol “grants” media access to the specific radiomedia (i.e. LC 145 s, repeaters 125, etc.), with the MAC choosing oradapting to the particular modulation scheme being used, such as thosedescribed previously with respect to Table 2. This may further be basedon knowledge of the channel (RSSI, interference, etc.). Dynamicadaptation can be done in various ways. For example, in one embodiment,a “thresholding” approach may be used, wherein the RSSI threshold isused to determine which MAC to use, with the radios then instructed tochange modulation, etc. The MAC can also be used to instruct transmitterelements of the various radios to use more power to increase signalstrength (and RSSI) to facilitate better modulation methods, thusallowing higher data rates (such as is as shown in Table 2). Inaddition, in a typical embodiment a BS 230 is not restricted to allocatea block of consecutive subcarriers. For example, a BS 230 may allocatedifferent modulation/coding rates per chunk and/or per node, based onsystem requirements.

In some embodiments, aspects of implementation details described in PCTPatent Application Serial No. PCT/DE2006/001653, entitled SIGNALINGMETHOD FOR THE DECENTRALIZED ALLOCATION OF ONLINE TRANSMISSION POWER INA WIRELESS NETWORK, filed on Sep. 18, 2006, may be used. This PCTApplication is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

In embodiments using centralized multi-hop com-munications, BS(s) 230associated with an RC 220 may control power and scheduling managed bythe BS 230 s for a number of involved hops. This may be implemented by,for example, providing a control signal from the RM server 162 to theMAC to configure particular radios.

In embodiments using distributed multi-hop and mesh implementations,such as load balancing implementations, BS(s) 130 associated with an RC220 jointly controlling and manage wireless network resources. Suchcontrol may be based on distributed algorithms. These algorithms mayinclude the differentiation among traffic types as well as to efficientutilization of buffer and power resources of relaying nodes. The conceptof situation-aware (dynamic) routing for the efficient utilization ofthe buffer space at the relaying nodes along the routes may be utilized.

Multiple antenna systems, including beam-forming (one data stream perlink) and MIMO (multiple data streams per link) may also be utilized insome embodiments to enhance and optimize the media content distributionperformance. In addition, stochastic power control for fast fadingchannels can be employed, to ensure a certain outage probability fortraffic with hard QoS constraints or to maximize the aggregate utilitybased on the knowledge of the slow fading components and the statisticsof the fast-fading components.

In embodiments having multiple cells, sectors, or BS 230 s controlled byan RC 220, the RC 220 may allocate nodes to cells or to BS 230 s orsectors depending on the load, available resources, interferencesituation, or other parameters.

End to end communications between peer entities, i.e., peer to peer LC145 s, can be carried via a set of multiple RF links making thisconnectivity, with different link mar-gins, bandwidths, etc. thusresulting in different data rates and throughputs. Selection of properlink topologies such as point to point, multi-hop, mesh, etc., combinedwith selection of media distribution schema such broadcasting,multicasting, etc. is used to optimize overall system performance and/ora single peer-to-peer connection.

Packet based protocols such as IP, TCP, UDP, RTCP, etc., can be used forcontent transmission and routing between the nodes. These protocols canintroduce addition transmission overhead bits thereby affecting theactual data throughput, and these protocols can offer more or lessreliable transmission. As an example, bits that are sent by UDP are notacknowledged upon receive, thus a sending node does not have knowledgeif the sent bits were received correctly, or received in error, or notreceived at all. Therefore, selection of an appropriate communicationsprotocol or protocols should take into account media QOS and reliabilityrequirements.

Media and information distribution algorithms may be used to create theoptimal configurations, topologies, methods, protocols and timeschedules to optimize the overall systems performance and to meetperformance requirements of each individual node. An example ofapplication of such a media and information configuration anddistribution algorithm is shown in FIG. 11. Algorithms or theircomponents may be dynamically distributed among all controllers foroptimum performance and scalability.

FIG. 12 shows an example of application of a wire-less networkconfiguration and radio resource allocation algorithm for a specificlink associated with a specific node. Resource allocation algorithm willuse the node and link knowledge to derive optimum device/link/networkconfiguration and resource assignments to meet various optimizationgoals specified by GS. Dynamic exceptions and varying environmentalconditions may also be taken into account.

In various embodiments, the following components/mechanisms for resourceallocation and interference management may be used, either individuallyor jointly:

1. Multiple antenna systems/multiple antenna elements—In someembodiments, in the receiver, transmitter or both, antenna diversity maybe implemented using multiple antennas to enhance the spectralefficiency and robustness against fading effects, and to combat theinterference.

2. Power control—In some embodiments, location of transmit power to MIMOsub-channels in connection with adaptive modulation, including in meshmodes, can be done.

3. Channel assignment—Channel assignments can be either fixed or dynamicdepending on the channel states of the users. In various embodiments,the following channel assignments schemes may be used:

a. AMC (adaptive modulation and coding) mode, where adjacentsub-carriers are grouped to a sub-channel.

b. Interleaved mode where the sub-carriers of each sub-channel areuniformly distributed over the signal band-width at some constantdistance.

c. Random mode where randomly distributed subcarriers are grouped to asub-channel.

d. Sub-carrier assignment where there are no subchannels, eachsub-carrier is treated independently.

4. Link activation—In some embodiments, such as in mesh modeimplementations, data may be constrained to half-duplex. Therefore, somelinks might not be activated simultaneously A link activation scheme maybe used based on random access or link scheduling protocol.

5. Time-frequency (TF) scheduling—In some embodiments, at the beginningof every frame, the chunks (sub-frame-sub-channel pairs) are allocatedto the links or groups of links (in case of multicast) that are active.

6. Multi-hop routing and load balancing—In some embodiments, datapackets are transmitted using intermediate airplanes as relay stations.Load balancing is achieved by means of multipath routing where packetsare sent over multiple paths to their destinations.

7. Multicast communications—In some embodiments data packets may beprepared and designated for multiple airplanes. Multicastimplementations may be used to improve the network performance byreducing the amount of data transmitted to the airplanes.

8. Network coding/Fountain Codes-Network coding may be used to achieveperformance gains in networks in which there are several data flows. Intraditional implementations, intermediate nodes between sources anddestinations always simply forwarded data, and the information flowswere treated separately. Using Network coding, intermediate nodes areconfigured to allowed to process, in addition to forward, data theyreceive. In general, applying network coding in wireless networks mayalso bring gains in terms of wireless bandwidths, delay and energyconsumption.

9. Peer-to-peer relay communication: Some data packets may be alsoavailable at airplanes (intermediate nodes) so that they do not need tobe requested from the base station. Instead, the base station only needsto prompt the airplanes to transmit the packets to other airplanes.

Higher-layer specialized protocols, called job schedulers, are used tooptimally allocate resources using above mechanisms to achieve theoptimization goals. In the context of the present invention, a jobrefers to the operation of transmitting some specified data packets toone or more aircraft, with possible acknowledgment in response. The jobscheduler is a protocol that initiates and interrupts jobs. A set of alljobs at some given time point is called a job request. The job frame isthe time between two consecutive time points at which the job schedulercan change a job request. Consequently, job schedulers decide(determine) when and which data packets should be transmitted to whichairplanes. At some predefined time points, the job scheduler canintervene into the current data transmission in order to eitherinterrupt some connections or initiate new ones.

In some embodiments, the optimization objective may not need to be tomaximize a total throughput at any time point but rather to minimize thetime for completing the jobs, possibly within some predefined timeperiod. A job is completed if all the corresponding packets arrive attheir destinations. To achieve this objective a transmission policy thataims at minimizing the time which is needed to complete jobs assigned bythe job scheduler is used.

Various GS 100 implementations may employ multiple power and sub-channelallocation strategies. These strategies are selected as needed tosupport various optimizations goals, network configurations andcommunications modes. These choices include, but are not limited to:

Multiple antenna multicast system with beamforming.

Multiple antenna unicast system with beamforming.

Multiple antenna unicast and multicast system with beamforming.

Multiple antenna multicast system with beam-forming and with fountaincoding with or without feedback.

It is noted that in various embodiments the present invention may relateto processes or methods such as are described or illustrated hereinand/or in the related applications or described in conjunction withsystem components. These processes are typically implemented in one ormore modules comprising systems as described herein and/or in therelated applications, and such modules may include computer softwarestored on a computer readable medium including instructions configuredto be executed by one or more processors. It is further noted that,while the processes described and illustrated herein and/or in therelated applications may include particular stages, it is apparent thatother processes including fewer, more, or different stages than thosedescribed and shown are also within the spirit and scope of the presentinvention. Accordingly, the processes shown herein and in the relatedapplications are provided for purposes of illustration, not limitation.

As noted, some embodiments of the present invention may include computersoftware and/or computer hardware/software combinations configured toimplement one or more processes or functions associated with the presentinvention such as those described above and/or in the relatedapplications. These embodiments may be in the form of modulesimplementing functionality in software and/or hardware softwarecombinations. Embodiments may also take the form of a computer storageproduct with a computer-readable medium having computer code thereon forperforming various computer-implemented operations, such as operationsrelated to functionality as describe herein. The media and computer codemay be those specially designed and constructed for the purposes of thepresent invention, or they may be of the kind well known and availableto those having skill in the computer software arts, or they may be acombination of both.

Examples of computer-readable media within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention include, but are not limited to: magnetic media suchas hard disks; optical media such as CD-ROMs, DVDs and holographicdevices; magneto-optical media; and hardware devices that are speciallyconfigured to store and execute program code, such as programmablemicrocontrollers, application specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”),programmable logic devices (“PLDs”) and ROM and RAM devices. Examples ofcomputer code may include machine code, such as produced by a compiler,and files containing higher-level code that are executed by a computerusing an interpreter. Computer code may be comprised of one or moremodules executing a particular process or processes to provide usefulresults, and the modules may communicate with one another via meansknown in the art. For example, some embodiments of the invention may beimplemented using assembly language, Java, C, C#, C++, or otherprogramming languages and software development tools as are known in theart. Other embodiments of the invention may be implemented in hardwiredcircuitry in place of, or in combination with, machine-executablesoftware instructions.

The description, for purposes of explanation, used specific nomenclatureto provide a thorough understanding of the invention. However, it willbe apparent to one skilled in the art that specific details are notrequired in order to practice the invention. Thus, the foregoingdescriptions of specific embodiments of the invention are presented forpurposes of illustration and description. They are not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms dis-closed;obviously, many modifications and variations are possible in view of theabove teachings. The embodiments were chosen and described in order tobest explain the principles of the invention and its practicalapplications, they thereby enable others skilled in the art to bestutilize the invention and various embodiments with various modificationsas are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended thatthe following claims and their equivalents define the scope of theinvention.

1. A method for prioritizing wireless transfer of content between a provided aircraft and a provided wireless system, the method performed by a local controller positioned on the aircraft, the method comprising: in accordance with detecting a touchdown of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for transmitting information that needs to be sent immediately and assigning a first priority for receiving media content; in accordance with detecting an arrival of the aircraft at the gate, assigning a second priority for transmitting a passenger manifest and a third priority for receiving media content; in accordance with detecting a departure of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for transmitting the passenger manifest and assigning the first priority for receiving media content; and in accordance with detecting a departure ready of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for receiving essential media content and the first priority for receiving other media content; wherein: the third priority is greater than the first priority; and the second priority is greater than the third priority.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein in accordance with detecting the departure of the aircraft, the first priority may be increased in accordance with a content type.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein in accordance with detecting the departure of the aircraft, the first priority may be increased in accordance with a time of departure.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein essential media content is received via a unicast transmission.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein other media content is received via a multicast transmission.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein essential media content comprises daily news.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein other media content comprises digital movies.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein detecting the arrival of the aircraft at the gate comprises receiving a notification from an airline.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein detecting the departure of the aircraft comprises receiving a notification.
 10. A method for prioritizing wireless transfer of content between a provided aircraft and a provided wireless system, the method performed by a local controller positioned on an aircraft, the method comprising: in accordance with detecting a touchdown of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for transmitting information that needs to be sent immediately; in accordance with detecting an arrival of the aircraft at the gate, assigning a first priority for receiving media content; in accordance with detecting a departure of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for transmitting the passenger manifest and assigning a second priority for receiving media content; and in accordance with detecting a departure ready of the aircraft, reserving bandwidth for receiving essential media content and the second priority for receiving other media content; wherein: the first priority is greater than the second priority.
 11. The method of claim 10 wherein: in accordance with detecting the touchdown of the aircraft further assigning a third priority for receiving media content; and the first priority is greater than the third priority.
 12. The method of claim 10 wherein: in accordance with detecting the arrival of the aircraft at the gate, further assigning a third priority for transmitting a passenger manifest; and the third priority is higher than the first priority.
 13. The method of claim 10 wherein in accordance with detecting the departure of the aircraft, the second priority may be increased in accordance with a content type.
 14. The method of claim 10 wherein in accordance with detecting the departure of the aircraft, the second priority may be increased in accordance with a time of departure.
 15. A method for prioritizing wireless transfer of content between a provided aircraft and a provided wireless system, the method performed by a local controller positioned on an aircraft, the method comprising: in accordance with detecting a touchdown of the aircraft, assigning a first priority for transmitting information and a second priority for receiving media content; in accordance with detecting an arrival of the aircraft at the gate, assigning a third priority for receiving media content; in accordance with detecting a departure of the aircraft, assigning the first priority for transmitting information and the second priority for receiving media content; and in accordance with detecting a departure ready of the aircraft, assigning a fourth priority for receiving essential media content and the second priority for receiving other media content; wherein: the first priority is greater than the second priority; and the fourth priority is greater than the second priority.
 16. The method of claim 15 wherein assigning the first priority further includes reserving a portion of the communication bandwidth of the local controller for transmission.
 17. The method of claim 15 wherein assigning the fourth priority further includes reserving a portion of the communication bandwidth of the local controller for transmission.
 18. The method of claim 15 wherein the first priority is greater than the fourth priority.
 19. The method of claim 15 wherein the third priority is greater than the second priority.
 20. The method of claim 15 wherein: the first priority is greater than the fourth priority; and the third priority is greater than the second priority. 